A shared vision for sustainable mobility
At Earth Action, we collaborate with pioneers who rethink the status quo. Softcar is one of them: a company at the intersection of technological innovation and environmental commitment.
Its ambition? To design a four-seater electric vehicle that is ultra-light, repairable, low-carbon, and engineered to minimize its impact throughout the entire life cycle.
Objective: Update the LCA to strengthen product positioning
In 2020, a first Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) helped outline the vehicle’s environmental footprint. In 2024, as the vehicle design evolved and Softcar’s ambitions became clearer, a new LCA became necessary — to integrate the latest data, measure progress, and strengthen the vehicle’s position in a market increasingly driven by sustainability.
Results: Environmental performance above market average
The updated LCA revealed several key insights:
- Climate change and mineral resource depletion account for more than half of the overall footprint.
- The main environmental impacts come from component manufacturing and electricity consumption during use.
- Compared to typical four-seater urban vehicles, Softcar shows significantly better performance across all environmental impact categories — especially resource depletion, climate change, particulate emissions, and eutrophication.
- Eco-design choices such as a recycled aluminum chassis, ultra-light MDPE structure, and simplified architecture helped achieve a substantially lower carbon footprint than conventional steel-based designs.
- With good occupancy rates, the overall impact becomes comparable to public transport systems.
These results strengthen Softcar’s original promise: to create a low-impact car without compromising functionality.
A structured and collaborative approach
Performing a complete LCA on a vehicle still in development involves working with partial data, assumptions, and continuous dialogue. Earth Action supported Softcar throughout the process with a pragmatic and structured approach:
- Rigorous evaluation of key emission hotspots
- Benchmark comparison with market equivalents (and alternative modes of transport)
- Identification of design and optimization opportunities for further improvement
This collaboration helped translate technical innovation into solid, credible arguments, directly supporting Softcar’s brand strategy.
Ongoing optimization: Exploring what’s next
Softcar’s chassis — the core of its design — underwent major optimization, with recycled materials, repairability, and long lifespan in focus. As a result, its environmental footprint is now well-controlled.
The analysis brought to light a new hotspot: onboard electronics (battery, motor, control systems), which now represent the largest share of the footprint.
The vehicle’s light weight already enables a smaller (and therefore lower-impact) battery. Still, there are further levers to explore around technology, recyclability, or second life of electronic components. Battery chemistry, for example, is a promising area: technologies like LFP (lithium iron phosphate) or LiMnO₄ (lithium manganese oxide) tend to have a lower environmental impact than NMC (nickel manganese cobalt) batteries, in terms of both climate change and resource depletion. These technologies are evolving quickly and should be monitored closely to guide decisions toward the most sustainable solutions.
Making LCA a strategic tool to align Impact, Innovation & Market Position
Softcar isn’t just building an electric vehicle — it’s rethinking the car as an essential, robust, low-carbon object designed to last. This case study shows that:
- A radically redesigned, lightweight vehicle can rival public transport in terms of environmental performance.
- Even at the pre-commercial stage, a thorough analysis helps guide design decisions and reduce impact before market launch.
- A well-executed LCA builds environmental credibility and becomes a true asset for marketing and positioning.
At Earth Action, we turn LCA into a strategic differentiation tool — enabling measurable, manageable, and marketable environmental performance.
Ready to lower your environmental impact and turn ambition into real results?
Earth Action is here to guide you through every step of your sustainability journey — strategically, pragmatically, and with maximum impact.
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